Trade Plates Obscured Vehicles' Identity
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vVHEINI told that vehicles which he was supposed to have weighed in Newcastle upon Tyne were, in fact, at work in Cumberland at the time, a weighbrildge attendant told Mr. J. A. T. Hanlon, Northern Licensing Authority, last week that the only explanation he could offer was that trade plates had obscured the number plates, and that he had accepted the registration numbers that had been given to him.
This was put forward at the resumed hearing before Mr. Hanlon at Newcastle upon_ Tyne, into the alleged weighing of vehicles supplied by K. and B. Motors (Newcastle), Ltd., and operated by Mr. John Scott, Arlecdon, and Mr. Charles Hewitt, Annan. The inquiry had been reopened at Carlisle the previous week, at the instigation of the Transport Tribunal (The Commercial Motor, November 13).
Mr. E. A. Stephenson, resident engineer at the Workshops for the Adult Blind, who attended the weighbridge. told Mr. Hanlon that at the time in question it had not been his practice to check registration numbers of vehicles presented for weighing. He could only confirm that vehicles from K. and B. Motors had been weighed on the dates in question. He realized that he had made a "colossal mistake" in not checking the numbers.
Concerning Mr. Hewitt's vehicle, Mr. T. H. Campbell Wardlaw, who represented Mr. Hewitt and Mr. Scott, said that Mr. Ian McLaughlin, who was at the time a salesman with K. and B. Motors, had made a statutory declaration to the effect that the vehicles had been weighed on the disputed date, In answer to a question by Mr. Wardlaw, Mr. Stephenson said that he. would not be prepared to make a statutory declaration to that effect.
Mr. Edward Waters, a director of K. and B. Motors, who had said at Carlisle that he would reserve his company's defence until the Newcastle hearing, told Mr. Hanlon that his company's solicitor could not attend. There was little he could say other than that Mr. McLaughlin, who had been responsible for weighing the vehicle, was no longer with the company.
Mr. McLaughlin had been invited to attend but was not present. Mr. Hanlon closed the inquiry subject to any application that might be made by the solicitor for K. and B. Motors.